Press release – for immediate use

Oxfordshire Roads Action Alliance (ORAA) has written to all Oxfordshire County Councillors to ask that they vote against draft funding of £11.1m towards the  £19.301m for the Watlington Relief Road in the County’s budget (which will be voted on by Full Council on 11th February).
 
ORAA is asking Councillors to carefully consider value for money given the very large sums of public money, for a very expensive road, and what benefits it would deliver for the County’s residents.     
 

Watlington is on the B4009, which has recorded falling traffic levels (OCC Point Counts CP068 and CP066 north and south of Watlington). This compares with an average increase across the county’s B roads of 3.2%. Watlington is not a hot spot for delay

 
Councillors will want to consider how scarce public funds should be spent to benefit most residents. The county’s highway network has many traffic congestion points where severe delays are experienced by large numbers of residents, and pot hole repairs, where the evidence for public investment is stronger than shown for Watlington. 
 
The taxpayer sudsidy for the Watlington Relief Road would be larger than any other scheme that ORAA is aware of where infrastructure is funded by accessing the public purse justified by housing. Average spend on such schemes across England has been calculated as £14,000 per dwelling. The HIF1 relief road at Didcot is in the region of £25,000 subsidy per dwelling. 
 
313 new homes have been built or have planning permisssion on three sites at Watlington and developers have agreed to implement, at their cost, off-site highway improvements and traffic management that will improve journeys for many people, without the need to build the road. (1)
 

Speculative applications for more local housing at Chalgrove and Benson have been successfully refused by the district council. The emerging South & Vale Joint Local Plan 2041 has removed the strategic site for 3,000 houses at Chalgrove Airfield.  

 
The relief road would not contribute to many of the transport policies that the County adopted unanimously in 2022, in its Local Transport and Connectivity Plan or to net zero. The road would increase vehicle miles travelled making it harder for the County to meet its target to cut car trips.  
 
All new residents would be excluded from the County’s flagship policy of 20mph for residential roads as the scheme has to be 30mph to attract traffic. The County would have to break national guidance on road speed from the Department for Transport that roads near school are 20mph.  Watlington itself is 20mph and there is no record of road casualties on existing roads to warrant investment on safety grounds.   
 
No action is need at Watlington on air quality. Roadside nitrogen dioxide levels are half the levels that would warrant action and no exceedances have been recorded at any location since 2018. Defra guidance is to revoke Air Quality Management Areas like the historic one in Watlington.
 
Not enough land was negotiated for cycle provision. To attract traffic including HGVs to use the road, the space is prioritised for lorries to pass and for roundabouts for HGVs turning, not for cycle provision. There is no cycle provision on one side of the road and no segregated cycle provision. 
 
Government agency Active Travel England has responded: “Shared-use provision affects the quality of the route, particularly for pedestrians and people with disabilities, leading to potential conflict between people walking, wheeling and cycling.”  New roads should have gold standard provision. “The scheme does not deliver policy compliant attractive and safe walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure for both existing and future residents'” ATE December 2024
 
The Environment Agency has objected as the road would increase flooding on local roads. The EA has warned the County Council since 2020 that it may not be possible to compensate for flooding and groundwater from building the road. 
 
Traffic modelling to support the latest proposals has been rejected (OCC Transport Development Control) . It will have to be recommissioned at further public expense.
 
A spokesperson for ORAA said: “Public money has been spent by OCC on the most expensive form of traffic modelling for the WRR but the public has been refused consultation on the model. Since the latest traffic modelling has been judged not fit for purpose by OCC’s own highway officers, ORAA is asking that the public is consulted on the VISSIM model for the whole scheme. The public has paid for the traffic simulation model which is flexible and can test different conditions such as removal of on street parking in different locations or in combination to allow for traffic at peak times. A range of sensible options should be tested, including those that would be funded by developers at no cost to taxpayers and have been shown to improve journeys without building the road, not ONLY parameters that support the expensive road is built. ”  (1) 
OCC has refused to model very inexpensive and effective traffic management or to carry out a consultation on a traffic order to allow these measures to be trialled before a decision to build a road. (2) This is what OCC’s own Climate Change officers have advised:
“Care should be taken to ensure that all other solutions to the issues experienced within Watlington town centre have been examined before a new highway is built.” OCC Climate Change 6th January 2025
OCC has also refused to model the relief road with 20mph. To attract traffic, it has to be 30mph and if it was modelled at 20mph there would be no business case to build it.
Just to emphasise how dysfunctional this suggested approach of a relief road is, Watlington has the least frequent bus service of all seven-day services across South & Vale. The relief road has no provision for public transport and no new or increased bus services would be delivered. This is where the investment is needed to give people a choice in how they travel outside Watlington. 
The full cost to build the road is unknown, exposing the council to risk. The project was promoted by the County Councillor as “fully funded” at £10m but costs have already doubled. The County does not have a planning application that can be considered for approval until more information has been provided and consulted on. This must include a Road Safety Audit considered critical by the County’s highway officers. (3) The County spent a further £1.27m on the planning application in 2024/25. 
ORAA’s spokesperson said: “At a time when money is scarce, any money spent on roads should be spent on fixing their dire state and filling the many pot-holes. We urge councillors not to agree to fund the Watlington Relief Road in the 2025/26 budget.”
ends 
Notes for Editors
Smoothing the flow by some parking removal, by allowing traffic at peak times in place of some on-street parking along Couching Street and Shirburn Street and enforcement to remove HGVs that should not be there, significantly improves air quality. Developer funded VISSIM traffic modelling of traffic management on the existing highway at no public expense, and accepted by OCC, shows delay reduced to 2018 levels,  with a saving of 149 and 89 seconds in the AM and PM peaks respectively, allowing for all planned development, without building the road. (Appeal Ref: APP/Q3115/W/19/3222822). Any post Covid gains on peak hour traffic from increased work from home is on top. 
2. A TRO is required for the developer funded traffic management measures to be implemented. OCC has refused to carry out the consultation on the changes to parking and highway improvements in the centre as it undermines the case to build the road.
3. To respond to the planning application for the Watlington Relief Road,  Reference number R3.0010/24
https://myeplanning2.oxfordshire.gov.uk/Planning/Display/R3.0010/24 
Scroll down and click Accept to access the portal. Click Comment on this application, enter your response and submit.